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I’ve had the opportunity now to play with Google+ since the day after it was made available. It pays to have connected friends. Thanks, Jamie! During this time I have also made the choice not to dive in with both feet. The reason? The last thing I need is another Twitter, FaceBook, or LinkedIn. Still G+ is an animal unto itself. Like Twitter, anybody can “follow” you and you can, in return, choose to follow them back, block them, or just hide them. Like FaceBook, it promotes more comprehensive discussions and provides an intuitive vehicle to share links, photos, etc. I’m still working to fully understand whatever comparisons there might be to LinkedIn.
“Circles” are where the real power in G+ lies. Circles are very much like lists in Twitter or FaceBook. The biggest difference is that you can actually figure out how to use them and edit them. I’m far from stupid but, editing lists in Twitter is brain teaser. Navigating anything in FaceBook, for me at least, is a nightmare. Yet, to be a power user in either of these social networks, you should master these features. Google+ makes it easy. It’s simple, its user-friendly, and it’s powerful. Hence, G+ will, and is, lending itself right now to the power user. Not only is it easy to see the update stream of any of these circles of friends, family, business connections … however you want to arrange and name them, you can also share specific and pertinent information to any combination of these dependent on what you are sharing.
The fly in the ointment for me is just how others are going to use their circles. Here it gets a little bit complicated. If I choose to put Contact A into my “Business” circle, and Contact A starts sharing what he or she had for breakfast, my business circle (in my mind) has been tainted. When sharing with circles you have the choice to share to one or more circles only up to the default which is “Public” which means you are sharing it to everybody. Even with folks who are not in your circles. To make things even more fun, even though I might have Contact A in my “Business” circle, Contact A might have me in his or her “BFF” circle. This means that what they share with their “BFF’s” is going to end up in my “Business” stream. Yikes, this is worse than I thought! I’ve already identified another huge, and fully expected, issue. Go to somebody’s Twitter, FaceBook, and LinkedIn streams. Often you will see the identical posts in all three. I’m already seeing this in G+ and tools are readily available now to help facilitate this. If I can go to one site and see all I need to see, why go to three or four?
Ultimately, it is going to take work to balance my circles with those people who will talk about the things I want to read in my specific circles. Fortunately, editing who goes in which circles is a snap. It will also take work on my part to develop the habit of being specific to select the circle or circles that I wish to share to. I’m at everybody else’s mercy as to what they want to share with me.
The obvious comparison here is to FaceBook and I am pretty confident about 3 things ….
- FaceBook is not going anywhere.
- Those who are on FaceBook will like remain there. I’m not even so sure that they will add G+ to their networking suite.
- Watch for FaceBook to add/change features to take advantage of G+’s perceived strengths.
In a perfect world, for my uses, I would like to see Google+ used primarily as a business tool. Kind of like a LinkedIn that promotes conversation. I’d leave FaceBook to friends only but, that may or may not be shortsighted so I have not decided yet on that. Twitter and LinkedIn are what they are and both serve a purpose. I’m generally optimistic but, balanced with a generous portion of pragmatism. The pragmatic in me, unfortunately, does not see it happening.
Thanks for visiting!
Craig
Related articles
- Google plus – what’s it all about, Alfie? (b2b-techcopy.net)
- Google Plus Benefits (buzzoodle.com)
- Why Google+ Will Give FaceBook A Run For It’s Money (wassupblog.com)
- Google + PLUS vs Facebook (businessbloggingtips.com)
Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. NetWorks! Boise Valley is a business to business networking organization for the most serious sales and marketing professionals only.
